News from the Farm

GREENHOUSE WORK

Over the past few days, Laura, Ned and Nora (who came back for two more weeks) seeded about 10,000 beets and quite a few other cool weather crops in trays in the greenhouse. Normally we would direct seed beets, turnips and some Asian greens in the soil. However, at this time of year the extended germination time caused by lower soil temperatures would keep us from getting much growth while we still had some heat and light. The first beets we seeded have already germinated and are growing nicely in the greenhouse.

Next on our agenda is transplanting around 13,000 seedlings which should have been planted earlier. Later we will plant another 20,000 or so transplants that we are now seeding in the greenhouse.

We will also continue to direct seed some hardy greens and radishes in the open field and plant carrots, baby leeks and spinach in our greenhouses.

This year, we rented three organically certifiable acres from an Amish farmer in Lancaster County and had him plant our potatoes, sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts. These crops were not affected by the upheaval on the home farm and if my luck changes, we will have a nice harvest of fall tubers and Brussels sprouts.

I've spent most of my time on the tractor rototilling and later spading the ground to prepare it for seeding or transplanting. Soon, we will have to start work on our low tunnel system to protect our newly planted crops.

It will be a few more weeks before we know if we are wasting our time or are onto something that will make a difference for our shareholders and the future of the farm.

I will try to keep putting up photos of what's happening plus some other shots which may be of interest. Today I included some of our farm animals and an atmospheric picture of an ancient wall of our house illuminated by the setting sun.